A Real Family
by Dragonsdaughter
Summary: Several years after the adventure Lina loses her perv hubby and is now the proud foster mother of three kids the kids he kept a 'toys' Now Zel finds he's got a second chance to be with Lina, but are the kids going to let him move in on their happy family?
1. My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean...

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A Real Family

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A Slayers Fan fiction

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Chapter One; My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean  


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Lina Inverse lived by a motto concerning her life. If something hurt you then tear it out by the roots, dissect it, and leave it rotting in some public place so the entire world knew not to mess the Dramatta. So what happened to her late husband should not really come as a surprise to anyone.  


To flesh out this story I suppose you'll be interested in knowing that shortly after the joyous discovery of Zelgadis's cure (the whens and wheres of that are another story), Lina met a young nobleman and quickly fell madly in love... with his money. Fortunately, the nobleman was looking to breed some magical get-go into his genetic pool so they quickly came to an agreement. Lina retired to her homeland of Zephilia with her young man and wasn't heard from for several years.  


Through their lively correspondence Amelia was the first to learn of the sudden, violent upheaval in her life. One letter on a bright winter solstice eve informed the young princess that after two years of marriage Lina had simultaneously begotten an heir and killed her husband --- messily.  


As Lina was still a free woman and in the good regard of her in-laws one can only be left in confusion. Perhaps some background information is required, for you see as one rather intelligent author once put it, "What Zephilians consider a polite disagreement is considered national warfare in most countries." To be brief, Zephilia is a rather small island off the coast of Sailoon with absolutely no tactical or aesthetic value. Its sole saving grace is that it is literally covered with the world's most arable farming land and produces a shocking number of amazingly powerful warriors each year. There is absolutely no poverty, mostly since there isn't a large enough population living there that the land cannot support them more than adequately. Needless to say, many countries have tried to overtake Zephilia for their owns uses but the afore mentioned amazingly powerful warriors repel them each and every time.  


Crime is also practically non-existent on Zephilia for two reasons. For the most part, people inclined towards causing trouble find the small island terribly, terribly boring and most often seek their fortunes elsewhere. The other reason is that ... well, let's just say that your average Zephilian considers chopping the hands off a thief lenient. There is no such thing as a 'repeat offender' in Zephilia.  


In general, Zephilia has no use for anyone outside her borders. She answers not to the High Council of Lords that oversees the rest of the world. She lives by her own laws, causes no problems, and expects the rest of her peerage to do the same or else. When one thinks of it, Lina Inverse is very much like the country that saw her birth. To return to the subject at hand, there are two things that no Zephilian has nor ever will tolerate: infidelity and child molestation.

To be blunt Lina Inverse had herself a growth spurt during the last year and a half of her marriage and suddenly became unappealing to her spouse. At some point in the last six months of her marriage (and his life), Lina managed to bludgeon her husband into doing his duty... hence the baby. Shortly afterwards she discovered her hubby's predilection with young children and fireballed him on the spot. Her in-laws' only regrets were that they couldn't get in on the action... as I said, Zephilia has a very strict code of behavior and enforces it rigorously.  


One might believe that Lina Inverse would have quit herself of Zephilia, return the children to their distraught parents, and reinstate her bandit hunting regimen... but no. 

She wanted to, but the discovery of certain papers in her late husband's study revealed the children to be orphans bought from a slave trader and in sore need of homes. Many of the surrounding families volunteered their homes to the helpless waifs, yet there were still children left. So Lina Inverse reclaimed her maiden name and adopted three of the twelve children that her husband kept for his personal amusement. A serious meeting with the Island Council decided that Lina received the three least scarred children as three children where harder to tend than one and she was only one woman after all, she could only do so much, the poor dear. Lina didn't comment on that misconception.  


Luckily the three given over to Lina's custody had suffered from nothing more than being sold by an uncaring relative to a slaver (as if that in itself wasn't enough...) and a frightening stay in the cells that Lina had bricked up before she sold the house and moved her new family to the other side of the island.   


After reading the letter of confession three times, Princess Amelia wil Tesla de Sailoon wrote off an urgent message to certain ex-chimera begging a favor.  


That is where the story begins. 


	2. Illusions, Illusions Everywhere!

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A Real Family

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A Slayers Fan fiction

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Chapter Two; Illusions, Illusions, Everywhere!!

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Zelgadis really didn't care for boats. It wasn't anything serious, really, just leftovers from his year and a half as a stone monster. As a creature made out of a substance notorious for its lack of buoyancy, Zelgadis had an understandable paranoia of water. It had possibly been the sole substance on earth that could kill him, he knew that for certain because there was short period in there when he had tried just about everything. It was just that Rezo showed up again before he had a go at drowning himself just to see if he could breathe underwater on top of everything else!  


While a rather snazzy spell had restored his human body and left him with most of his chimerical powers, he still felt a small aversion to water. To add insult to injury, the only thing that stood between him and the hereafter was a precarious structure of wood only a few inches thick.   


He told the crew of the boat that he got seasick and being down in his cabin lessened the symptom... which was mostly true. If he didn't have to see the endless stretch of death liquid he could pretend it wasn't there.  
To take his mind off his potential death, Zelgadis had taken to reading and re-reading the letter Amelia had sent him. It was short, formal, and to the point.  


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Zelgadis-sama,  


Lina-san killed her husband. I'm tired of watching you sulk, it's your own damn fault you didn't fight that jerk for her. If you don't get your stony butt to Zephilia and seduce her I'm going to exile you! Don't think I don't mean it!  


Love and Kisses,  


Amelia  


PS You've got two weeks, and if I don't hear wedding bells your ass is grass! Gourry and Sylphiel have promised to help me, too!  
  


A copy of the letter Lina had sent her quickly followed Amelia's letter from Lina, detailing exactly the events that had preceded her husband's death. Lina had gone into just enough detail that Zelgadis had ultimately decided it was a very good thing the bastard was dead. Murder was very hard on one's karma and Zelgadis still had a lot to work off from his short stint under Rezo's command.  


As he understood it, Lina was now the proud foster mother of two hellion boys and a rather shy young girl. Four pages of the five-page letter had been devoted solely to them and their new home. 

The boys were Larsac and Lothor, twin boys from the cold northern reaches. They remembered enough of their heritage to protest being called 'Ice Elves', especially since for all that they bore the pointed ears of Sidhe race they were as mortal as the next. Their foster sister was Briar whose papers proclaimed her to have been captured in a raid of the Austurian Forest Ranger camps. Lina's letter boasted of the boys' magical skills and Briar's flawless archery.  


Zelgadis chuckled over the notion of Lina running after three children who were probably bigger than she was. He sobered quickly though when it occurred to him that she would pretty soon have a fourth to deal with. The idea was rather disturbing if not thought provoking.  


His mother had always told him that pregnancy was a delicate time in a woman's life. She'd always postulated that a woman's emotional balance became severely unhinged and then even the toughest woman was prone to mood swings and crying spates. Her advice had always been that he could expect a trying nine months, whoever his bride.  


No duh.  


Zelgadis pondered a sweet, dewy, emotional Lina for all of ten seconds before consigning the idea to the paper shredder. Nope. No way. Never. He'd believe a fire breathing, fireball-tossing Lina before that.  


Not that she wasn't usually like that anyway...  


***  


A league or so north of the schooner bearing Zelgadis nearer to Lina by the moment lay Zephilia. Or more precisely Yatamo, the main port and Capitol of Zephilia. Actually it was the larger of the two harbors. The other was Nirichi on the north side of the island, but it saw less action than Yamato since only Yamato actually faced the mainland.  


Beautiful, gem-like Yamato city was the second thing that any foreigner saw of Zephilia. The first thing a foreigner saw was the docks where the customs guards and the vermin vied for supremacy... and the vermin were winning. Crates of fish and rotting vegetation were piled this way and that to greet the visitor to Zephilia's relatively safe shores. If they failed to convey the proper reception then the day and a half of quarantine in cells only slightly better than the docks and rough, repeated searches usually did the trick.  


What a foreigner wouldn't know was that the crates of rotting fish and vegetation were carefully maintained by a crew of artists and the vermin were bred especially for their immunity to disease and their ferocious looks yet chicken-hearted demeanor. The idea behind all this anti-welcome campaign was to discourage the rest of the world from discovering Zephilia's quiet, peaceful climes sending their population soaring and their economy plummeting. Remember, Zephilia is a very small island that can only support so many people.  


Lina tapped a slipper-clad foot on the grimy wood of the boardwalk where 'Ladies' were consigned to wait for their parties. Normally Lina wouldn't have spared propriety even a first thought (much less a second one) and set herself up in a tavern with a light snack (read seven course meal), but that was before she had a fourteen-year-old daughter to set a good example for.  


Dammit.  


Briar was standing demurely at her side, the very picture of angelic innocence. A froth of golden curls surrounded her rosy cheeks and blue eyes. Her heart shaped face and pert little mouth gave her all the seeming of a cherub who only lacked wings to gain access to the pearly gates of Heaven.  


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Most deceptive.  


In reality, Briar's namesake was an apt description of her true personality. 

Briar could act as pure and innocent as the next, even Lina had been taken in for the first few weeks they'd been officially mother and daughter. After that though, Briar had dramatically acclimated to her new surroundings and promptly disposed of the guise... at least around Lina and her new brothers. The girl had a tongue that could draw blood at fifty paces and a mind to match. Her mastery of the thinly veiled insult was par none, but on the rare occasions when she exhibited a temper that put Lina to shame she revealed repertoire of curse words and foul language that... well, there wasn't anyway to describe it really. Briar once held a cursing contest with her brothers that lasted for about two hours and she didn't repeat herself once.  


After her growth spurt Lina had reached the grand height of five foot eight yet Briar already stood as high as her foster mother's shoulder. Briar exhaled gustily and glanced about the dock. "Where are Lars and Loth?"  


"Getting into trouble, like as not." Lina answered tiredly. Her back hurt, her feet hurt, the sun was beating down on her, and the brat in her womb was tap dancing on her liver. "Where's that damned boat?" she muttered under her breath.  


"Do you need to sit down?" Briar asked in concern, unlike the boys she was more likely to pick up on things like that. Although more often she exploited the talent in searching out weaknesses...  


"Yes, I do. But somebody who knows what Zel looks like should be here so he doesn't get caught in 'quarantine'."  


Briar shook her head and sent her curls bouncing in a way that would have made Shirley Temple green with envy. "You sent projections of the twins and me to your friends, didn't you? He should be able to recognize us!"  


"Briar..." Lina started.  


"Mother! It'll be fine. I'll find him. You go sit down in the shade, I'll come for you once he's here." Briar reassured Lina. "Go sit down!"  


Lina sighed and allowed herself to be ushered into the shade of a tavern. 


	3. Reunions!

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A Real Family

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A Slayers Fan fiction

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Chapter Three; Reunions!

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Once she'd seen to her foster mother Briar made all haste to where Larsac and Lothor were waiting for her by the waterside.  


"Is she okay?" Larsac worried, (he was the sensitive one). "She didn't go into labor or anything, did she?"  


Lothor cuffed his brother upside the head (he was a bit more like Lina). "She's fine! Just because you let Mother out of your sight for two minutes doesn't mean she disappeared or anything. Jeez, Lars! Brie would have looked worried or something if something went bad!"  


"Knock it off you two. Mother's fine, she just stood out in the sun until she was all tired and sweaty and worried over you two! Couldn't you have made an excuse or something?" Briar shouted.  


"Picky, picky, picky." Lothor groused. "You want it done such a certain way, do it yourself."  


"Yeah, beggars can't be choosers!" Larsac agreed.  


"They can if they can kick your butts into next week!" Briar threatened. "Are you ready?"  


Lothor grinned and brushed a lock of pure white hair behind his pointed ear. "You doubt the Amazing Inverse Brothers? Watch and be amazed! That jerk's gonna be sorry he ever set foot on Zephilia."  


Briar interrupted her brothers' preening with an unladylike snort. "The Dock'll do that, we want him back on that boat A.S.A.P. He could be another Pervert like.. Him."  


"You've only told us that, like, a trillion times." Lothor drawled. "Don't worry, we've got an angle. That dude'll be back on the boat so fast it'll turn your hair frizzy, well frizzi-er." He reached out to tug on a lock of Briar's curly mane.  


Briar nodded and decided to let the jab at her hair pass. This was too important to piss off Lars and Loth over now. She'd never had a real family before, or even a home that kept the rain out. She really didn't need some stranger nosing in and ruining everything for her.  


***  


Zelgadis was only too glad to put the boat behind him. Even the slums that greeted him were preferable to... that. He exhaled as the tension drained from his shoulders.  


"Now to find Lina..." he told himself cheerfully.  


Just as he started off to the boardwalk (which had large groups of menacing brawn hulking about it) a vivacious redhead dressed in a long yellow dress popped out from behind one of the odious crates decorating the port. "Mr. Greywords! You're here, I'm so sorry but..."  


Zelgadis might have thought the woman was Lina but... for one she was about three inches too tall, too busty, too cheery, and he was quite positive that Lina couldn't adopt a falsetto voice like this woman's if she tried.  


That and Lina wouldn't even call him by his full first name when he'd beaten her at cards three times, marriage couldn't have changed her -that- much.  
He muttered a spell underneath his breath and immediately saw the woman for what she was... or rather what she was not.  


Zelgadis snorted and walked through the shoddy illusion and straight to the miscreant spell casters. Two boys with white hair and pointy ears were hiding behind one of the odorous crates that made up the decor of the docks. A little blonde girl burst out from somewhere and stationed herself between the boys and him.  


"Go away! We don't want you here!" she cried.  
Zelgadis cocked his head and mentally summoned up Lina's description of her foster children... no doubt about it.  


He bowed politely and summoned up what he hoped was a charming smile, or a reasonable facsimile thereof. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Briar. I expect that Larsac and Lothor are the boys hiding behind you?" he peered past the bristling blonde version of Lina to the boys standing behind her. The both had longish white hair that was tied back in low ponytails; they were identical save for the earrings that graced their Elvin ears. The one on the left had a gold earring in his left ear and the one on the right had a silver ear ring in his right ear. Their pale blue eyes bored into his own: they seemed to be resenting his lack of respect for their illusion of Lina.

"If they are, what do plan on doing about it?" Briar challenged. "And it's Miss Inverse, to you!"  


Zelgadis blinked. "Pardon me, I didn't know you'd taken Lina's name for your own. Ah, speaking of. Where is Lina?"  


"Our -Mother- is resting in one of the taverns, she got all hot and tired waiting for you!" The boy with the gold earring accused.  


Zelgadis stifled mild surprise when the boy stressed his relationship with Lina but he didn't let his smile waver. He needed to win these kids over, they were pretty much key to his plans... besides, he liked kids. "I'm sorry about that, but even as it was I ended up getting off the boat and flying most of the way." ... because I couldn't stand to be on that rickety thing one second more! He added silently.  


The boy with the gold earring nudged the boy with the silver earring and shook his head with a frown. The boys both turned a glare on him that seemed even more venomous than before. What had he done now?  


Briar scowled at him. "Just get lost. I told you that we don't want you here! Go away!"  


Zelgadis frowned minutely. What had Lina told these three about him? They seemed to think he was Shabranigdo incarnate or something equally loathsome. 

"Kid, I'm not here for you. Now would you please tell me where your mother is?" he asked exasperatedly.  


"Nothing' doing!" Silver earring informed him. "You might as well get back on your boat an' go home. Four's company, but five's a crowd if you catch my meaning."  
Zelgadis shook his head. "I don't know which welcome wagon's more warm, you or the bunch of goons that tried to hassle me as I landed..."  


Gold earring's head snapped up and he nudged his brother in the ribs. Some sort of silent communication must have passed between them for a ponderous frown painted itself on Silver earring's face. He looked at Zelgadis thoughtfully. "I'll make you a deal." He said finally. "You tell us how you saw through that illusion and we'll take you to mother... after that I make no guarantees."  


"Lothor!" Briar cried indignantly.  


Silver earring, who was apparently Lothor, which meant Gold earring was Larsac, made hush-hush gestures at his sister. "I got a handle on this, Brie. What's the problem, mom could just fry him like she did the last one." Lothor turned a charming smile on Zelgadis. "You game?" he asked and his voice was more slippery than a snake on a slide. It actually put Zelgadis strongly in mind of Xellos at his worse.  


Zelgadis nodded curtly. "Indeed. I saw through your illusion because I'm immune to them. I doubt your mother's told you, but we traveled together for about half a year. At the time I'd been turned into a chimera, a very strong chimera, but also a very ugly one. Your mother helped me cure myself, but parts of the condition are incurable. Besides, Lina's never called me Mr. Greywords. I don't think she's capable of it. Does that answer your question?"   


Lothor beamed, his faith in he and his brother's abilities was restored. Nicely. I suppose Mother would appreciate it if we showed you some manners..."  


"It would be a nice change." Zelgadis murmured sardonically.  


Lothor favored him with a dirty look that was echoed by both his siblings.  


"Don't push your luck, Buddy." Briar warned him. "I'm still itching to use you for target practice."  


Zelgadis bowed mockingly. Once, or rather if he and these kids ever warmed up to each other he would certainly be kept hopping. Just to pique their tempers he adopted the courtly air he'd perfected in Sailoon acting as Amelia's formal bodyguard. 

"As you wish my Lady. In my haste I neglected to introduce myself, I am Sir Zelgadis Greywords. I gather that you are Lady Briar Inverse and that these are your gallant siblings Larsac and Lothor?"  


"Since when were you a knight?" Lina commented sarcastically from beside the crates she'd been watching the spectacle from behind.  


"Since Amelia got bored in the middle of a court session a few months ago and decided to liven up the proceedings with a knighting, I just happened to be handy. I even got forty square acres of swampland to go with the title." He wiggled his eyebrows facetiously. "How long have you been listening?"  


Lina batted her eyes prettily. "Oh, I just got here." she said flippantly. "I see you've met my little angels. Aren't they horrible?" she winked playfully at her children to gloss over the insult. Briar went over to Lina to stand protectively between her and Zelgadis.  


Zelgadis chuckled and sketched another bow at Lina. "Oh, indubitably. In fact, they remind me of you." He strode past Briar and offered Lina his arm. "This is hardly the place to reminisce, though. Why don't we go somewhere... cleaner?"  


"Sounds wonderful." Lina chuckled and waved her children close. "Let's go to the inn, The Villa is about a day's travel north so we'll spend the night here."  


"Villa?" Zelgadis queried. "Moving up in the world, aren't we?"  


"Oh, it's a step up from living on the road and storming bandit camps for pocket money." Lina said flippantly. "Wouldn't you say, kids?"  


"You never lived on the road!" Lothor scolded. "You were married to El Hentai, right? Like he would let you out of his sight?"  


Lina sighed and shook her head. "Didn't anybody ever tell you stories? All right, if you want to believe I'm hopelessly boring and plebeian, go right ahead. I suppose that's what mothers are supposed to be, ne Zel?"  


Zelgadis rolled his eyes and deigned not to comment. Kids never wanted to believe their parents had a life before they arrived on the scene. He'd been the same way with his grandfather until Rezo started taking him along on his trips. That had been a real eye opener.  


Lothor turned a faint pink and started walking a bit closer to Lina, who smiled down at her son and dropped a pat on his unruly hair. "My, my. I think some one needs a haircut." She mused. Lina paused to survey all her children. "It's a good thing we're in town. We'll take care of that tonight."  


Briar clapped a hand to her curly locks. "I don't want them short!"  
"We'll just get the edges neatened up." Lina promised.  


"Okay." Briar said warily. "But no more than my shoulders, even if it is ragged."  


Lina smiled benevolently. "As if I would let them cut off these gorgeous locks?"  


Briar flushed and walked a little closer to her foster mother all the way back to the Inn. 


End file.
